I wanted to take a moment to let you know haw very pleased we are with the “re-do” you did on our website. When we first sat down to discuss the make-over, I was very concerned about loosing the first page rankings we had achieved with Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Not only did you maintain those rankings that we had achieved, but you brought up our rankings to first page status on many second tier search terms, also.

The primary goal I wanted from your work was to speed up our download times which were falling from “poor” to “unacceptably slow”. You nailed it. Not only do our pages load very quickly, but the do so with more text, graphics, and video on the page.

Your periodic comments, suggestions, and offers to do the minor “tweaks” are very much appreciated. Though I used to write the site, I just can’t keep up with the ever changing web requirements and SEO standards.

I am looking forward to a long relationship. You are considered a valuable company asset.

John Schiefelbein, Owner

North Country Canoe Outfitters
boundarywaters.com

Pine Point Lodge
pinepointely.com

Sarah Levar, Executive Director
Dorothy Molter Museum

Since I’ve been designing web pages since the mid-90′s, what I will talk about here is pretty much second nature to me now and is,  I’m sure, nothing new to the many excellent experienced web designers out there.  But for those of you who are wondering if your code matches the SEO scrutiny, here are my basic principles.  I’ll be updating them as I think of more.

1. Titles using the heading tag <h1>, <h2> etc., not a font size on a <p>.  Put your style on the <h> tag itself or define all <h> classes in your style sheet.
2. Use those heading levels to show what’s in the site: the main topic, and each sub-topic.
3. If you’re hiring an SEO expert, don’t bother too much with <title> tags, because s/he will put unique and good SEO titles on each page for you.  Just give your WordPress articles or pages good juicy titles and <h> headings.  But if you aren’t hiring an SEO expert, you’ll need a title that says what the page is about and is unique from all the other title tags in your site.  You will be penalized if you have several pages with the same title.  Watch out for software that does not allow you to uniquely title all your pages.
4. Get the list of key words from the client (they will be searching for those phrases when the project is being tested ) and from the SEO expert, who should provide you with the results of their keyword research.
5. Try to fit the keywords in the pages that you are writing, especially paying attention to the homepage.
6. Internal links:  link keywords to other areas of the web site.
7. Put a list of the various areas of the site after your site introduction with the link to the appropriate area being key words.  This may seem old fashioned but it tells the search engine and the user exactly where to find everything on the site.
8. Always have informational pages on the site.  You can’t spend the whole site trying to sell to your user, whether that be your product, your service, or your point of view.  Search engines love information, so they give a lot of power to informational pages, something about your topic that makes you an expert.  These can be static pages, but now, in the era of Word Press, even more useful are…
9. Blogs.  They are like informational pages but in a format that tells the search engines, “Hey, this site is having some action, it’s not just sitting there never changing.”  But that’s more for the SEO Expert to explain to the client or you.
10. I leave meta tags and titling to the SEO expert.  What a relief.  But if not, fill them up with key words and phrases.  The description tag is very important.  Keep it to the point but full of key words.
11. I fill in all the alt tags for photos, being sure to get in some key words in the process and often the name of the business if I think it will help in search results.  This is also a polite thing to do for those who are not using graphics to “see” your page, or for those who are vision impaired.  That’s the real use for the alt tags.
12. Guide your user through the site.  Often, I watch users reading vigilently the entire home page, eager to get the information presented there.  But, when they get to the bottom, they just don’t know where to go next.  So, in my design, I try to guide them to the next logical step in their visit to the site.  Some users won’t use this at all, but some will really appreciate it.  Also good for SEO (see “6. internal links”).
13. If possible, have a menu on the bottom as well as the top of the page.  One absolutely has to be text.  If the top menu is graphic, then the footer with text links is absolutely essential.  Use short linking words that don’t necessarily have to be the same as the top menu.  Key words again.
14. Have every page accessible from every other page, especially the home page.  Do not have pages that are only accessible through other pages.

The really sad part of this all is that doing all the above used to be enough for a page to rise to the top of the search engines. But in the current market, you need help from a real SEO expert to give you that extra boost you need to get to the top of the search engines.  But good web design is also a key element in the SEO equation.  The two elements — good web design and SEO marketing –make the best partnership to have your web page rank where you think it should be.

OK, that’s a little misleading.  Because I’m about to convince you not to design your own web site.

You’re an expert at your business.  Or at least you know a bit about what you’re doing, enough to make a living at it.  Or, maybe you’re just learning.  But the point is, your focus, the thing you should be concentrating on is YOUR business, your product, your service.  Your web site is a marketing tool for that business, but it is not your business.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t want to say that it’s none of your business!  But so many business owners think they will save money if they do their own web site work.  “It’s so much easier just to make those changes myself,” they say.

Well, yes, in a way.  But here’s the thing.  When you hire someone whose entire business is the internet, the way it works, the way different aspects interact with each other, you are multiplying your investment many-fold.

First of all, you have someone to bounce your ideas off of.  Thinking, creating in a vacuum, doesn’t increase the power of your thoughts.  But thinking in tandem with others creates a creative atmosphere where the ideas exponentially increase as they bounce back and forth.

Secondly, your attention shouldn’t be on the internet and how it works.  Your attention should be on your business.  Your internet consultant’s job is to know how things work and interact, and when you let her know your plans, she can suggest different methods of implementing those plans, things you never thought of, things you probably didn’t even know about.

If you figure out what your time is worth as an owner of your business, you will see that it is a foolish investment to take the hours you could be putting into your business and doing your own web work, or even making your own web decisions.

If you are a non-profit, get a web person on your board.  They will suggest ideas that you will never think of.  If you are a business, hire yourself an internet consultant right now.

How Is an Internet Consultant Different from a Designer?

A designer creates an attractive web site, possibly — and hopefully — a useful and efficient web site.  That person may or may not know about usability, search engine optimization, what makes a site fast loading, internet marketing, picking a good domain name – all the things that an internet consultant should have in their bag of tricks.

Hire yourself a good internet consultant today.  It may be one of the best investments you could make.

As an internet consultant and site builder, when I first meet with a client, I encourage him to dream big, think of everything he wants to do with the site, now or in the future.

There’s nothing worse than a leggy site that has been added onto and onto without the planning for the new ideas that are coming forth.  A good brainstorming session with your staff in conjunction with your web designer can be so useful in determining the big picture for your web site.

Maybe you won’t implement everything right now.  But if your web designer knows that you are planning for that feature in the future, she can plan for it in the overall design.

Once your designer knows the big picture, she can help you determine what is in your current budget and how to plan for the future applications you might want to add.

Working with an experienced web consultant, not just someone who can create pretty designs, is key in planning your web site.  And as we all know, in business, planning is EVERYTHING.  It will save you heartache later.

1. Social Media widget – I did searches like crazy to find something that would link to the client’s facebook page, not just add a “like” button.  This sidebar widget will also will link to just about any social network page you can think of,  like yelp, youtube, twitter, et al.  There is also the ability to add other unique links and icons in case your network isn’t listed.
2. Share This – I use the Share This app on my static HTML sites, so this is a great plugin that does the same on your WP sites.  Lists whatever social sharing icons you want at the bottom of each post/page.
3. Random Text – A great way to put sayings or testimonials around the site without cluttering up your posts.
4. Custom Contact Forms – Sometimes you need more fields than just Name, Email and Message.  With this plugin, you can use the same fields in more than one form.  Includes CAPTCHA.
5. Broken Link Checker – checks your site in intervals you select for broken links.  Fab.
6. XML Sitemap Generator – Creates a site map and submits to google, ask.com, bing.
7. Advanced Recent Posts -  list posts in your sidebar from specific categories – this works great for Latest News, for example

Working with Irene was an amazing experience! She was extremely patient and was cognizant of what we were looking for in a website. She was given basic information about our organization and our goals and created a website that absolutely blew our minds away! Her work brought a level of enthusiasm and excitement amongst our members that hadn’t been seen in quite a while. Finally, there was a place people could go to see what we were about and feel the attitude we wanted to convey! Although she could have easily decided to develop a new website that would have probably been more costly to the SWWA FOOLS organization, she was able to recognize that a blog would be much more effective for us and our message. We were left with an impression of trust that Irene truly wanted to help our organization in the most effective and efficient way.

On behalf of the Southwest Washington FOOLS, I highly recommend Irene Hartfield. She will listen, she will explore, and she will deliver!

Crystal Brown, Southwest Washington FOOLS
(Fraternal Order of Leatherheads, a firefighters organization)